Larry, the 10 Downing Street cat, sits on the Cabinet table wearing a Union Flag bow tie ahead of the street party to celebrate the Royal Wedding. Hopefully Larry won’t need to catch any rats during the street party [AFP / GETTY]

I tried to fnd a still shot of the verger who did cartwheels down the red carpet in Westminster Cathedral… Larry is a good runner up however. I say put him in charge of everything.

Did anyone catch the military uniform worn by Harry? Epaulets, stand-up collar and gold swag that managed to look heavy. And lots of it. Obviously, faded empire has too much in common with lunatic tin pot dictators.

I think Derby the ram is saying quietly, Holy Fucking Fuck! Unhand me! Return me to my meadow! I am NOT a Dog! I am not amenable to “walkies”!

****

Also in the column of pomp and circumstance is Libya… John Ellis, Bush relative, calls it, meaning L’Obster’s move to permit armed drones over Libya, a “tactic in search of a strategy”…

It is also a nightmare.

He quotes from a FT article:

[I]t is hard to see how regime change can be achieved, and its consequences managed, without committing ground forces, at least in a stabilisation role. This would be a huge step, threatening an open-ended entanglement, though Libya’s population is only a fraction of Iraq’s or Afghanistan’s. It would split the Nato alliance, many of whose members are unwilling even to join the bombing campaign. It would engage Britain, France and the US in a deployment to arbitrate the future of Libya, while Iraq and Afghanistan remain unfinished business. . . .

A British diver swims near a blue whale. The images, taken last month, are the first ever to show a human and a whole blue whale in the same shot together. Many have battled hard to achieve the feat, but due to the size of the whales have only come up with shots showing divers and parts of the animals. Team members of Scubazoo – a British dive company based in Malaysia – spent 200 hours diving eight-hours-per-day for 25 days trawling the ocean around Sri Lanka in order to capture the scene. Roger Munns, from Cornwall, was photographed by Jason Isley, from Essex, making contact with the giant of the seas at around 10 metres depth. Roger said: “It was amazing. It was murky so we didn’t see the whale until the last minute, and it travelled so fast. The encounter only lasted about 45 seconds and then it was gone. But all those hours waiting were worth it.” [SCUBAZOO / BARCROFT MEDIA]

A dead sea turtle washedonto the shore at Waveland, Mississippi. Endangered sea turtles and dolphins are still dying in high numbers in Mississippi, which continues to be impacted by tar balls and weathered oil following the Deepwater Horizon oil leak [Mario Tama/Getty Images]

From the above link:

[T]he view from her submarine is different, and her attachment is almost personal. On her descent to a location 10 miles from BP’s well in December, Joye landed on an ocean floor coated with dark brown muck about 4cm deep. Thick ropes of slime draped across coral like cobwebs in a haunted house. The few creatures that remained alive, such as the crabs, were too listless to flee. “Most of the time when you go at them with a submarine, they just run,” she says. “They weren’t running, they were just sitting there, dazed and stupefied. They certainly weren’t behaving as normal.”

Her conclusion? “I think it is not beyond the imagination that 50% of the oil is still floating around out there.”

At a time when the White House, Congress, government officials and oil companies are trying to put the oil disaster behind them, that is not the message from the deep that people are waiting to hear. Joye’s data – and an outspoken manner for a scientist – have pitted her against the Obama adminstration’s scientists as well as other independent scientists who have come to different conclusions about the state of the Gulf. She is consumed by the idea that she – and other colleagues – are not really being heard.”It’s insanely frustrating,” Joye says. . . .

The Guardian article included this little tidbit:

[K]en Feinberg, the independent administrator of BP’s $20bn compensation fund, says he is close to finishing compensating individuals and businesses who were hurt by the disaster – without even coming close to exhausting the $20bn.

He paid out only $3.6bn last year . . . .

In other news, I see Hapless Hopeless, our iron-deficient so-called leader, is in Annandale today for a dry run, with some hapless kids, of the speech he will give at Facebook tomorrow.

We are blessed to have Leader with us for two whole fucking days. Here on Wednesday and Thursday in Los Angeles.

Something around 35K per ticket.

Oh right! The Democrats pretend to take a principled, spine-filled stand against the Citizens United SCOTUS ruling.

Bridges for sale and moving fast over in Aisle 4!

[M]ore than 150 dolphins, half of them infants, have washed up since the start of 2011. At least eight were smeared with crude oil that has been traced to BP’s well, NOAA said, and 87 sea turtles – all endangered – have been found dead since mid-March. [that would be 87 in just over a month – Mcat]

“To me it makes no sense to think that it is random consequence, but it is kind of maddening because there has been a lot of energy and effort put towards beating the drum of everything is wonderful, everything is going to be fine by 2012,” says Joye.

Other studies have disputed Joye’s findings. Terry Hazen, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, failed to detect any traces of underwater oil in the six weeks after the well was capped. But he did find evidence of naturally occurring bacteria that ate the oil. John Kessler, a scientist at Texas A&M, found that the huge quantities of methane gas, which were released along with the oil, had also rapidly degraded. . . . . .

Oh please. Lawrence Berkeley (Chu had been head of it) and Lawrence Livermore Labs are part of the Defense Industry. Get a clue. Lawrence’s widow has campaigned for what seems like two decades to have his name taken off the labs.

None other than RUSH, as in Limbaugh, loves to push that oil eating bacteria. I have no doubt that such an organism exists and functions with naturally occuring oil leaks.

Fife Scotland: This inquisitive dog was left stunned when a playful young seal gave him a friendly slap on the cheek after he bounded into the sea during a game of fetch. The seal patted the boxer on the face during the encounter after he chased a tennis ball that had been thrown into the ocean by his owner. The young dog found the baby seal with its head poking out the water and instead of retrieving his ball, he circled his intriguing discovery. [Lynn Morris/Solent]

So.

At the age of 86, Noam Chomsky remains as active as ever in his work as a world-renowned political dissident and pioneering linguist. He has also opened a new chapter in his life, recently celebrating a one-year anniversary with his new wife, Valeria Wasserman Chomsky, his second marriage. Chomsky discusses the joys of newfound love and why it is a "pri […]

Noam Chomsky weighs in on the Black Lives Matter movement across the United States, calling it a response to the unresolved consequences of slavery and racism dating back hundreds of years. "[Slavery] is a large part of the basis for our wealth and privilege," Chomsky says. "Is there a slave museum in the United States? The first one is just b […]

Following its election in January on a pledge to confront the austerity program that's decimated Greece's economy, the Syriza government has faced a major pushback from international creditors led by Germany. Days after Greece secured a four-month extension to a loan package in exchange for new conditions on its spending, Noam Chomsky says the Euro […]

World-renowned political dissident, linguist and author Noam Chomsky discusses why National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden should be welcomed back to the United States as a hero and why those who authorized the government surveillance he exposed should be on trial, not him. Chomsky also argues that while mass surveillance has been ineffective i […]

The Islamic State might be the best-funded radical Islamist group, perhaps in history, but the coalition air campaign that’s targeting its oil-refining operations and military assets has begun to damage…Click to Continue »

Britain has extradited a Vietnamese national to the United States to face charges that he aided and received military training in Yemen from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the Justice…Click to Continue »

At the annual American-Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, speakers advanced Iran as an existential threat and sought to downplay differences between Israel and the US while demonstrators were arrested outside

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the United States on Tuesday that it was negotiating a bad deal with Iran that paved the way to a "nuclear nightmare," drawing a rebuke from President Barack Obama and exposing the depth of a U.S.-Israeli rift.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives approved full fiscal-year funding for the U.S. domestic security agency on Tuesday, dealing a blow to conservative Republicans who had wanted the bill to include language blocking President Barack Obama's recent executive orders on immigration.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified on Tuesday that deep budget cuts could force the Pentagon to put on hold several key weapons development programs, including efforts to build a next-generation fighter and a more efficient aircraft engine.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday the chamber was moving toward debate on a bill that would require President Barack Obama to submit any final nuclear deal with Iran for Congress' approval.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.